Gill: Why Frazier Wasn't Sold And Saha Was

After possibly the most dramatic close of the transfer window ever, Manchester United finally landed their man, Dimitar Berbatov, and loaned out young striker, Frazier Campbell, in return.

Hull were prepared to pay £7million for the 20-year-old, following the brilliant season he’s had with them, aiding their promotion to the Premiership. However, Sir Alex Ferguson turned that down, instead preferring to loan him out.

With Louis Saha sold, United could have been relying on Campbell as their only out and out striker. David Gill today explains the decisions of the club.

“Fraizer has been a well sought after young striker over the summer and we did receive offers from clubs wanting to buy him,” Gill said. “We didn’t want to sell though because we believe, and Alex believes, he has a great future ahead of him. Going on loan to a great club like Tottenham will give him experience in the Premier League and he’ll come back a better player and hopefully force his way into the team here. So we’re delighted with the deal – it’s good for him and good for us.”

Gill then goes on to explain the thinking behind selling Saha to Everton, saying, “it was a decision that was taken by Alex, the player and the club. There were discussions over the summer with a few other clubs, but Louis liked what he heard when he met with David Moyes and decided Everton was where he wanted to go. Louis himself felt it would be good for him to have a new start at a good club like Everton. All we can do is wish him all the best and thank him for the service and goals he provided during his time here.”

17 Comments

Saha, at his best, when he played, was a really good striker and won us a lot of games. Trouble is, he didn't play enough games (and when he did get a good run it upset Ruud and he left!).

Campbell has looked OK so far and even if he doesn't make it, he'll still go for some decent cash later. The only thing that worries me about Campbell is that he seems to have Andy Cole like tendencies of being fast, but needing a lot of changes to score...

Of course we were, Saha is a quality player but useless to us as he's rarely, if ever fit.
Whereas Frazier Campbell is a quality young player that has bags of potential, he's done it at championship level and hopefully he'll do it at premiership level with Spurs and then come back to us an even better player.
I think it would of been mad to sell Campbell and Keep Saha personally.

I think it was the right decision to sell saha and keep campbell. Firstly, campbell is young with long future ahead while saha is already 30 years old this year. Plus of cause all man u fans know he's injury-prone. Secondly i think Sir Alex learn his lesson from selling rossi to villarreal and see him doing SO well in his first season there. He would want to see how campbell perform at a premier league club in spurs b4 deciding what's best to do with him after one season. Overall, i think it's a very smart choice to loan him out to spurs for experience because spurs only have 2 recognise strikers in bent and pavlyucenko in their squad with the latter being unproven in english football. I feel campbell will get playing time there. Cheers mate to man utd! ;P

absolutely.. brilliant transfer maneuver from Sir.. by sending out our most promising forward to a "big"-ish club like spurs in desperate need of firepower on loan whilst getting their star player in return.. nearly a dream scenario except maybe the price was a little steep for berba.. i hope campbell comes back to us full of confidence and ready to fight for a first XI spot

Yes. I really like Saha's style but that early good run in 06-07 seems to be just a memory now (and sadly, it is) due to his injury problems. Decent man, great professional who has not let us down when he was fit to play. Everton is a good place for him to start anew.

And as for keeping Campbell on loan, also a good choice. He won't get many first team chances with Berbatov arriving and Spurs need more forwards. The experience will do him a world of good, if he gets the playing time we all hope for. It's a good deal all around.

Great piece of business, I know its widely stated but saha was on a large salary and fraizer being quite young we can assume that he is on a much lower one and spurs should be picking up his tab for the next year.

Don't get me wrong, i liked saha but he was just disappearing and I'm hopeful for campbell.

I think its good to keep our youngsters close, but lets hope its not going to be a rossi and go on loan to a premiership club and we learn nothing about him. That loan to newcastle was a joke. At the end of the day that premiership experience should help his valuation next year if we decided to offload him for some silly reason.

OH GOD YES!! I've been waiting for the news that we were ready to keep Campbell, he's such a promising striker, he's looked sharp it's time he's played, with the blunt attack England have i'd even take a gamble on him, we're spoiled for strikers now but I wish there was a way we'd have kept Campbell. Oh well, let's hope Spurs actually play him.

Yeah, we were right. I amsure Saha will have some kind of appearances clause in his deal which will 'encourage' him to be fit enough to play more often, and we will get a decent butty from Everton for letting him go, plus he wasd a big earner and that's him off the wage bill. Spurs is a ggod club to loan him to. They try to play the right way and are of a sufficient level so as to improve Campbell's game. He should manage to get enough games given Spurs's striker numbers and if he hits double figures, he will come back twice the player, worth twice the valueand then things could really happen for the lad

Yes, Saha has had his time and many big chances at United. It isn't his fault he's an injury prone bastardo and Campbell, being young and very gifted and valued at SEVEN MILLION POUNDS... has the chance of many years at United after this season playing at the top half of the league with Spurs